Lesson 4: Nutritional Myths
This lesson covers widely believed dietary myths.
Introduction
There are numerous idealized dietary plans that don’t live up to the promise of optimum health. The low-fat, high-carb diet recommended by the Food Guide Pyramid is one of those diets. The reason it fails is because it does not differentiate between types of fats, carbs, and proteins, and because it has not utilized modern nutritional research that negates the healthful affects of agricultural foods.
The Food Guide Pyramid recommends that we limit all fats at the expense of the healthy types that our bodies need. It recommends that we eat an excess of carbohydrates without taking into consideration that some types are unhealthy. In fact, it recommends the unhealthy types. It recommends that we limit all protein sources without considering the varying protein content of those foods.
Many people feel betrayed by this diet when they develop the diseases it was supposed to prevent. We’ll talk more about those diseases and the relationship between them and our Western diet later in the course. In this lesson, we will discuss the nutritional myths surrounding proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, as well as cholesterol, calcium, and other vitamins and minerals.
